Tag: nostalgia

I don’t remember much about my first day either, though I do have a photo that I believe was snapped that morning:

Long-haired hippy. It was the 70s though. And I was obviously in a good mood… or it may have been my usual “I’m being photographed” face — lots of kids have those.

What I do remember is that (possibly on enrolment day rather than the first day of term) I decided that I wasn’t capable of spelling “Daniel”, and went by the name “Danny” instead… that lasted for 9 years, until I switched high schools to Melbourne High and decided I liked “Daniel” better. (My surname changed at the same time.)

I also recall early in that first term of Prep an older kid bullied me about something (possibly race-related, or perhaps about the odd appearance of my right eye), but I can’t remember any of the other details. Hopefully I wasn’t too upset about it. Back then there wasn’t a school buddy programme, which probably would have helped.

But as far as I recall, no other issues in Prep, and most of my primary school years are filled with happy memories.

When I was a kid, I liked to kneel on the front seat of the (W-class) tram, looking out the front, and watching the driver, trying to figure out how it all worked.

I reckon the front still gives you the best views.

Back in the day I recall a control to apply the power, another to brake, with a big wheel as the backup brake (akin to a handbrake I suppose — I was once on a tram whose main brake had failed, and we rolled slowly up Carlisle Street, with the wheel being used to bring us to a halt at every stop).

Many trams didn’t have doors, but those that did had an extra lever to open and close them. These days there are various other newer controls in the cab.

Murrumbeena/Carnegie, 2003-2005

The move to Carnegie in 2003 gave me two local stations, because the house was almost equidistant between them. It was slightly closer to Murrumbeena, so I usually used that. But Carnegie had better access to shops, so that got used sometimes too.

I’ve mentioned Murrumbeena already. Carnegie hasn’t changed much recently, but the surrounding area has, with the new library being built — and opening just after we’d moved away. D’oh. On the corner of Dandenong Road, a multi-level shopping centre rose from the (figurative) ashes of the old Betta Electrical/Billy Guyatts that was once there.

I still sometimes go back to Carnegie. There’s a great pizza shop (“Herbs”) on the corner of Neerim and Koornang Roads.

Bentleigh, 2005-

My final regular is Bentleigh.

Since I moved here, it’s had upgrades to the level crossing (but not actual grade separation), and parts of the local Smartbus 703 route have been added into zone 1, which I think has added to the number of people using it. It’d be nice if this was all done in the name of removing zone anomalies, but in fact it appears the motivation was the Myki system, which needs stop zoning to be consistent between all the routes using an individual stop — so parts of the 703 had to be added to zone 1 to fit in with other routes around Brighton and East Bentleigh. No matter, at least it got done.

Shame the 703 still doesn’t meet the Smartbus service standard.

In the station itself, which isn’t exactly beautiful no matter how clean it is, there’s an ongoing battle of wills between Metro and local vandals, with the gents’ toilet door receiving many coats of paint in the past 12 months or so. Given the graffiti that decorates the ex-State Bank/Telstra store down the street, it’s fair to say there’s a local graffiti problem.